


Defense

by StillSinging



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Armin had a really bad day, Breast cancer, Communication, Eren and Jean just run a 5k, Eren is an ass for .2 seconds, Established Relationship, Feminism, Forgiveness, Hurt/Comfort, Implied JeanMarco - Freeform, Jean is a nice guy, M/M, Misgendering, No One Has Cancer, Rape Threats, Trans Armin Arlert, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, Triggers, argument skills, catch the horse-joke, dfab Armin, i can't write jean into a story without making a horse joke, it'll be okay, past bullying, pls give him a break, venting, verbal harrassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7364953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StillSinging/pseuds/StillSinging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin had a really bad day, old wounds are reopened. He snaps, and him and Eren get in a major argument, and now they must deal with the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defense

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, I just needed to rant.

Armin loves his boyfriend, he really does.  Eren Jaeger is the sweetest, kindest, (and most often misunderstood) soul he’d ever meet.  He loves him even when he flings Armin’s favourite books across the room and yells: ‘ _When you said this was a ‘good’ book I thought you meant good and not fuckening devastating! I thought you loved me?! Why must you inflict this pain upon me?!”_ Even when the arguments are serious, he loves him.  

But goddammit, of all the disgusting things Eren could do, he  _ had _ to come home wearing a  _ “Save the Ta-tas”  _ shirt.  He could have left an unfinished tray of month old sushi beneath their bed, and not even that could evoke the sensation of having his own skin flay itself back from his bones in the same way it had when both Eren and Jean waltz through the front door adorned in rubber bracelets that proudly proclaimed “ _ I <3 Boobies.”  _

“Hey Armin, what do you think?” Both boys beamed proudly in their sweat-drenched athletic gear, a pink and white headband was crooked across Jean’s forehead.  Armin glowered up at them from over his glasses, his hair fell out of its short ponytail and into his amusement-barren face. If it had been any other day he would have been calmer.  Armin would have sighed, asked how the 5k-fundraiser went before undoing his ponytail and shaking his blonde hair into his face.   _ Then  _ he would let them know the error of their ways.  

It wasn’t any other day though, today was a  _ shit  _ day.  Armin slammed his book shut and threw it onto the coffee table.

“I think your attire is insensitive, and it’s shitty,” he bit out like an unexpected gust of wind in the wintertime, one that pierced through your best winter coat.  Both Eren and Jean flinched at the icicles in his tone, no longer were they jovially hanging around each other’s shoulders like drunken best friends.  They stared after Armin with wide eyes and jaws agape, a path of ice seemed to follow him as he stomped to his and Eren’s bedroom. One iced moment later, Armin was stomping out of the room with a pair of old shirts balled angrily in his clenched fists.

“Armin?” Eren’s brow creased softly, his eyes glistened in concern muddled with confusion.  What had he done to warrant this level of sheer rage?

“Take off your shirt!” He flung a ratty red shirt at Eren’s chest that Eren barely caught, he clutched it to his chest as if his heart had been wounded.  The last shirt was flung in the air above Jean only to crumple into a heap at his sneakered feet.

“Wow, both of us? Are you okay with this, Eren?” Jean stole a glance at his friend, forcing a half-baked smile that quivered in bewilderment. “Is he this aggressive in bed?” He attempted to diffuse the situation.

“SHUT YOUR APPLE-CHOMPER, KIRCHSTEIN!” Eren would have laughed at the insult if it wasn’t for the way Armin’s face turned red, and the way his finger was jabbed in Jean’s alarmed face, shaking with sheer rage.

“Hey Armin, let’s sit down, let’s try to be calm about this,” Eren stepped forward, placing his hands gently onto his boyfriend’s shoulder, only to be evaded like a deadly strike.

“NO! I  _ won’t  _ calm down! You’re sexualizing a cancer that destroys lives, Eren!”

“I’m what!?” Eren lost control of his voice, he wasn’t doing anything wrong! He’d just run five kilometers to raise money for a disease that would most likely never affect him.  Now Armin was in his face acting as if he’d gone onto national television and spouted some offensive crap or maybe threw a bag of kittens into the river to drown.

“These shirts are horrible!  So are the bracelets! Their  phrases objectify women!” Jean looked uncomfortable witnessing the two,Eren was assuming his argument stance, if there was anything Eren hated more, it was to be told he was doing something wrong.  

“No they don’t!” Now Eren’s fists were clenching, and his face was turning a dark red from frustration. 

“Hey dude, I really don’t want you to think I’m attacking you, but like, we didn’t do anything--,” Jean put his hands up.

“We’re not attacking him, Jean, if anyone’s attacking, it’s Armin!  We just walked in and now you’re at our throats, what’s wrong with you!?” Eren’s hands splay angrily in the air, his day had been going great, it was blue skies and nice weather for running, and now he was in the middle of what felt like a war.

“What’s wrong with me?! What’s wrong with _you!?_ ‘Save the Ta-tas’? ‘I love boobies’?! What about the women?! Why are we making this about their boobs and not _them.  The_ _people suffering._ ”

“I don’t know, Armin, maybe  _ because it’s BREAST cancer,  _ which happens in the  _ breasts?!” _ Eren ran his fingers roughly through his already tousled hair.

“Dude, we literally just raised money that’ll specifically be used to help women…”

“But it’s almost as if the whole project is advocating for the  _ breasts _ , and not the women attached to them!  Why is this okay?! Why are women’s boobs prioritized over the women themselves!? It’s bullshit!  Husbands leave their recovering wives everyday after they come out of a mastectomy because they’re no longer ‘attracted’ to them!” Tears were forming in Armin’s eyes, their blue standing starkly against his red face.

“Well shit,” Jean stared off into space, pondering the ways in which society disadvantaged women.

“See?!  _ This  _ is what happens when you prioritize a woman’s breasts over her actual well-being.  It’s  _ disgusting.   _ The method in which breast cancer awareness is advocated for is warped and twisted!”

“ _ Oh,”  _ Jean looked off into the non-wood burning fireplace that was not lit at the moment, enlightened.  Just as it seemed they reached the eye of the storm, and could maybe wind down, Eren roared.

“Goddammit Armin! Why do you have to kill the fun in everything?! I thought you’d stop PMSing!” The argument was the orchestra, and all the strings had snapped in that moment, bringing about a silence not wrought by the conductor.

“Dude…” Only Eren and Armin were in the scene now, and Jean could only watch as the expressions flickered over the two’s faces. Armin closed up, his body became rigid and the blue oceans in his eyes became grey and polluted.  Suddenly he noticed the dark bags under his eyes. Eren’s face slowly fell apart as realization dawned on him like a morning sun he’d wish would never come.

“Shit, Armin, I’m sorry!” he was stumbling after Armin, his hands reached for his boyfriend’s shoulder only to violently be shrugged off. “I didn’t--,” before he could finish his sentence, their bedroom door slammed in his face, the lock clicked. 

_ One. _

_ ShitShitShitShit _

_ Two. _

_ ShitFuckShitFuckingShit. _

_ Three. _

_ I’mSuchAfuckingShitFuck. _

Eren held himself up in the doorframe, his head lolling forward, sweat beaded on his forehead.  Suddenly his insides felt too hot, they wanted to escape from his mouth. He can be an asshole, but never has he been  _ this  _ kind of asshole.  ‘Asshole’ didn’t cover it, he was a Fuckface. Unbeknownst to him, he started rocking on his feet.

“Hey man,” Jean awkwardly put his hand on his shoulder, really he wanted to slap his shoulder, but the guy looked so weak on his feet that Jean was afraid that he’d send Eren face first into the door and cause Actual Damage.

“I fucked up,” Eren muttered absently, Jean unstuck him from the doorframe. “I  _ really  _ fucked up.” Jean led him to the couch, in which Eren collapsed in a way that seemed painful, Jean flinched for him but didn’t do much to stop it.

“Yeah you did,” Eren closed his eyes and dropped his head to his chest, his throat clogged up in an ugly russet emotion that tangled up his heart and his lungs and made tears burn trails down his face and plop heavily onto the backs of his hands.  “But you know you fucked up, and that’s what counts! I mean if he’s gonna forgive you,” Jean gripped his shoulder in a way that was supposed to be comforting.

“ _ ‘If.’”  _ Eren’s coughed, it felt like blood but he knew it was only tears.

“You never know, I mean as long as you don’t have a horrible track record, and how long have you been together?” It felt like ages.  

“Two years,” Eren swallowed, not knowing how that could possibly make things better.  Plenty people have fucked up relationships that had stretched to two years.

“And you’ve been friends since you were kids in elementary right?!” Jean laughed, patting Eren on the shoulder, trying to get him to stop feeling as if doom was upon him.  Jean was no expert on relationships, but he had hunches.

“And you’ve always supported him right?” Eren nodded frantically, of course!  There wasn’t any moment in which Eren could remember  _ not  _ trying his best to be the best possible person for Armin.  

“So, I think you’re good!” Jean shrugged, impervious to the weight that was threatening to tear Eren’s shoulders from their sockets.

“No, I’m not!” Eren glowered at him through narrowed eyes.

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re an asshole and what you said was  _ absolutely _ shitty, but you’re not a  _ bad _ person, you just were insensitive, and you realized it, and you can fix it.” Jean took his hand from Eren’s shoulder, and wiped his hands off together as if he’d finished a difficult task.

“I hope so,” Eren mumbled, crossing his arms across his stomach. Jean stood up and arched his arms over his head, letting out a sustained groan of pleasure from the stretch.

“I would love to stay and play relationship counsellor,”  _ no, I would actually prefer death,  _ “but it’s date-night for Marco and I,” he grinned, thinking of his freckled ray of sunshine.  

“Have fun,” Eren grumbled, dropping his gaze to his feet.

“Before I leave, though, look me in the eye--good--now apologize to me like I’m Armin,” Jean stood before him before with his arms crossed. Eren peered up at him, with that stupid headband around his forehead it was hard to pretend he was Armin. He took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry that I’m a piece of shit, and you deserve better,” Eren open his eyes, and the displeasure gracing his angled features could rival the Queen of England.

“That’s a shit apology.  It sounds manipulative af.” Jean tapped his foot incessantly, he had Freckled Jesus to take on a date, but his friend needed to get his act together.  “Try again. Pretend I’m Armin.”

“I can’t, my boyfriend doesn’t look like a horse,” Eren groaned into his hands, apologies never came easily to him.  

“Okay.  Close your eyes. I have blonde hair in the shape of a mushroom, and the biggest blue eyes ever, I’m so sweet, and I want to go prance around in the ocean’s waves.” Eren squeezed his eyes shut.

“Armin, I’m so sorry.  I said a shit-thing, and I really wish I hadn’t.  I got angry, and the way I handled that was not cool of me, and I really hope you can forgive me and that we can still be okay.” Eren opened one green eye, searching for approval in his friend’s face.  Not that he cared what Jean thought at all, but this wasn’t about just him and Jean. Jean pursed his lips, and nodded.

“That’s a damn good apology, now don’t recite it too much, it’ll lose sincerity.” Jean offered, then his eyes caught sight of the time.  “ _ Shit!  _ I gotta go!  Don’t fuck it up, bro!” He beat his fist against his chest twice, and then he held two fingers out in a peace sign towards Eren before he slipped out the door.

“Thanks,” Eren muttered to the now empty space with a shred of sincerity.  In the other room, the shower ran in an angry silence where Armin turned the water as hot as he could possibly stand.  The water that nearly scalded his skin was causing his anger to rise off of him in the form of steam that clouded the mirror.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

_ Earlier that day… _

 

Armin pulled his coat tighter over his white button down, which was stained by coffee.  Really he’d rather not wear the coat, but the brown stain was all down his front and caused him undue embarrassment, but in the middle of a packed bus where heat radiated off of everyone made the fair fall weather unbearable.  

“Hey!” A man’s voice he didn’t recognize sounded out beside him, others laughed and Armin got the sinking feeling they were talking to him.  A group of men.  Men in groups laughing the way they were made Armin’s skin crawl.  _ They’re not talking about me. They are NOT talking about me.  _ If he squeezed the straphanger in his hand any tighter his wrist might break, soon he’ll be off the bus and he can walk home. Luckily the bus stop was practically right in front of his apartment, he can get off, shower, and maybe take a nap.

“Hey you! We’re talking to you,” there was no mistaking it, the men jammed in the aisle with him  _ were  _ talking about him. Maybe they don’t want anything big, maybe Armin should just humour them and then they’ll leave him alone.

“Oh, I kinda spaced out there,” he shook his head, pretending to shake off a daze that had descended over him.

“You look familiar, don’t we know you?” The leader of the pack as it seemed stood one-and-a-half heads taller than Armin.  He didn’t appear stronger, but his grin was wide displaying teeth that could be knives, and his dark eyes looked down on him. He flipped his messy hair.  There was definitely something familiar about him and his friend with the slicked back hair and the other one who had a baby face placed upon a wide-set body built like a ton of bricks. The way they all sneered down on him was reminiscent of times in his past.

“No, I don’t think you do,” he kept his voice even, avoiding eye contact with the three of them. He pulled his coat around himself tighter, just a few minutes, he’ll be off here soon.

“Did we go to highschool together?” The man pinched his stubbled chin between his forefingers.

“No--.”

“Middle school?” The flick of his friend’s eyes from his feet to his head stirred something in Armin’s memory bank.

“No, I--.”

“Elementary?!” The guy’s dirty blonde hair  was gelled too much and didn’t move a bit when he cocked his head to the side.

“ _ I swear I don’t know any of you!”  _ Armin’s voice rose along with his shoulders, a couple people sitting around them look back their way, wary. Silence.

“Ah...now I remember,” The pit in the center of his stomach decentered itself, and caused that sinking feeling he gets when recognized by people he could barely remember himself. “You’re that girl we used to tease back in elementary school,” his lackeys snickered to themselves. 

“I’m not a girl,” Armin bristled, the leer they gave him was skeptical.  Their eyes slowly drew up and down the blonde’s rigid frame, the guy with the gelled hair rose a thin eyebrow.

“Yeah, okay, what was your name again? Wasn’t it Arwen or something?” 

“My name’s Armin,” he tried not to flinch so hard at the sound of his dead name on their lips, it was like a curse that shriveled his skin. 

“Nono, I remember now, your name’s Arwen, wow you’ve changed so much!” His hand was slapping against his shoulder as if they were old friends.  To Armin, it felt like a wrecking ball.  He prayed that his stop would come soon.

“Yeah, she looks even more like a boy now!” The baby-faced man with short cropped hair laughed, a spray of spittle splattered from his open grin.

“That’s...because...I  _ am  _ a guy,” he tried not to let his voice shake, but his lips quivered as he tried harder to cement his face in stone.

“Still a cryer aren’t ya’? We had some pretty good times didn’t we Arwen?” His corners of his lips had a permanent upwards lilt to them, giving his mouth a glasgow-Joker-like smile as he talked. 

“You guys would beat me up,” he struggled past the knot in his throat that wrung moisture out of the edges of his eyes that seeped into his eyelashes.  The bus finally whined to a stop.  

“It was all in good fun,” the Joker man shrugged, “-- _ hey!  _ Where you going?” Armin took off, pushing his way through the sea of people that would not look him in the eye, nor would they turn to tell his harassers to leave him alone.  He was off the bus, and for a moment the open city air welcomed him with arms that comfort, but just as the sun seemed to ease his storming insides, the sky grew dark as he heard the men getting off the bus behind him. Home was so close, all he had to do was walk down the sidewalk three complexes and he could be safe, but these men would undoubtedly follow him.  He wouldn’t be safe. 

A group of people were almost finished crossing the crosswalk, the sign counted down the time they had left before cars could start driving again.   _ 3...2...1... _ Armin dashed for the other side, cars blared their horns at him but he could hardly hear them over the sound of his feet against the asphalt and the pounding of his heart.  Getting run over seemed like a much better option than being trailed by his elementary school bullies. 

“Hey! She’s getting away!”  He didn’t stop running when he reached the sidewalk, people complained when he weaved past them and trampled over their feet. He turned a corner, and then another and found the small cafe that he and Eren would occasionally frequent. The bells clunk indelicately as he burst through the door earning a few looks from a few patrons and staff. He tried to keep his heaving to himself, but it was as if all of Earth’s atmosphere decided to withhold its oxygen from his lungs. 

Stares followed him all the way to a secluded booth in the back corner of the cafe, his knees gave out as he buried his head in his folded arms.  The likelihood of the guys following him in here was slim, but the thought of going back out there to make his way back home petrified him.  It was a situation that he’d always feared, groups of men laughing together with their shifty eyes in his direction never boded well.  With his forehead against the table, Armin formed his misgivings with the way of the world.  How could people stand by as another is victimized?  What if they’d caught him?  Would anyone turn to look? 

Nobody stands up, people just go along, leaving the vulnerable there to fight for themselves, run...or you can just freeze.  Tears spilled, forming salted pools on the wood table that burned in the wounds inside of him, wounds that would reopen ever so slightly every now and then.  He had to go home eventually, but that meant he’d have to get up and everyone would see that he’d been crying.  Really though, he’d rather not be crying in the back of a cafe.

“Hey, how can I help you today?”  A waitress’s kind voice was like a tender hand on his shoulder, such a lovely thing to hear.

“Change the world.”

“I’d like to hon, but first how about tea? On the house?” He didn’t look up to her, but he nodded, he’d like that.

  
  


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Armin squeezed the extra dampness from his hair with a towel, then wrapped himself in it.  He stayed like that for a while.  After tea earlier, he’d called an acquaintance who was nearby and more than happy to see him to his apartment’s door.  Reiner didn’t ask questions, he just had your back whether he knew anything or nothing.  The day at that point was already wearing him thin, talking on the phones with people who thought they knew how to do his job better than him  _ always  _ wore him out, Armin tries to see the positives; this is a  _ paid  _ internship, but halfway through his commute to work, he spilled his coffee.  The coffee machine at work was broken today and so by the time he got on the bus back, he was tired.  He was pissed.  The stain on his shirt was hours old and stank of creamer. Then there was the commute home that exposed old pains of his that never seemed to go away.

His head hurt, his insides hurt, it was time for a nap, but his dreams were filled with memories.  Sometimes the group of boys doubled in size, the new members clones of the new ones. Sometimes they were ones involving the guys on the bus today, some were not.  Then he decided sleep was for the weak.  

Armin was a grown-man approaching his mid-twenties, a few old elementary school bullies shouldn’t cause him to utterly break down like this.  It was though, he’d been followed...he was prey.  But they were voices from the past that he was hoping he could never hear again, Armin had built his life up to the way he’d always wanted it to be.  He’d transitioned into the man he had always been, but now others could see.  Armin wasn’t hidden behind the facade that “Arwen” was.  He never wanted people to see her again; he has been building his life in the city, the only people he kept around him who’d known him as “Arwen” were Eren and Mikasa, and they’d been supportive his entire life.  He met Jean mid-transition, but Jean doesn’t know his deadname.  He knows not to ask.

“Arwen” was discarded in the past, and Armin had worked to secure all of the voices who would only call him as “Arwen” behind a wall.  The past stays in the past.  But now they’re  _ here. _  They were on the bus with him, they were one voice that got through and now he thinks he can hear the others forcing him to look back and remember it all.  It didn’t matter how small, or insignificant he told himself the memory was...he remembered, and it hurt all over again. 

He shouldn’t have yelled at Eren, Eren hadn’t done anything to purposely upset him.  Every negative memory from the had been compiling though, creating a dense iron ball in his chest ultimately weighing him down.   _ ‘I <3 Boobies’  _ had triggered a flashback. It then came out at Eren as though it was his fault the memory existed, though, it was only the phrase. It was one more aspect of society that personally affected him in the past, and it all came out in a feminist rage.

Two hours had passed since he and Eren fought, maybe he should go and work this out.  The words spewed between them were a volcanic eruption and now they’ve had time to cool, now they needed to work with the aftermath.  The ash had cleared, and Armin’s head was a little bit clearer.

He pulled on sweats and a loose shirt before unlocking the door and took a deep breath before pushing it open.  Eren was sprawled out on the couch in the shirt Armin had thrown at him earlier, the abandoned one was crumpled by the coffee table’s leg in a pink heap. Eren’s eyes looked up from his phone screen but before they could make eye contact, Armin looked away and went on to the kitchen.  He put on the tea kettle for himself and the coffee for Eren, then he waited.  

“Hey…” Eren fidgeted in the doorway, but Armin didn’t turn around.  He leaned his hip against the counter and crossed his arms, not in defiance though, crossed arms grounded him in moments of fragility.  “So, I looked some stuff up, and you’re right.  The whole ‘ _ Save the Ta-Tas’ _ campaign method is really messed up, I’m sorry that we fought about it. There was just all this anger coming at me at once, and I got defensive.” Eren put his phone face down on the counter, on it he’d pulled up several tags about the subject, and a couple more about how to form an apology.  He knew how to apologize--it’s just having three tabs open on the subject made him feel more confident. 

“I’m sorry for jumping you...that wasn’t fair.” Armin didn’t move to pour the boiling water into a mug when it whistled, he could feel Eren’s eyes in between his shoulder blades, begging him to turn around.  He didn’t though.

“Also--I don’t know how properly say it--I mean it though, I said a shit-thing.  I blamed your anger on PMS--which implies that your emotions don’t matter, and I should have known better! I--,”  _ Armin, I’m so, so, SO sorry, I can’t believe I said that, I’ll do laundry for the next month and make you your favourite dinner every weekend, I’m--! _ Suddenly, his boyfriend was no longer poised against the counter, rigid, and distant, he was crashing into his chest and wrapping his arms around his torso.  Eren found it hard to breathe in Armin’s vice-like embrace, but he made no move to make him let go.  The damp yellow strands of his hair are like silk in between his fingers, Armin’s tears are warm and dampen Eren’s shirt in two spots. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he finally said.

“I know,” Armin’s voice shakes against his chest, Eren doesn’t let go.  Slowly, he got the feeling that more was happening behind his deep ocean eyes.

“Is anything else going on?” he rubbed circles in the curve between his two shoulder blades, weakly, he could feel Armin nod against the crook of his neck. The silence between them is allowed, Armin uses it to collect the words he needs to say, and to hold back the tears enough to speak.

“Remember those guys in elementary school who used to bully me?” Silence.  Of course Eren did, he came running to Armin’s defense whenever he could, then he’d get beat up too.  They only really backed off when Mikasa came around. “They were on the bus with me on my way home, and they recognized me...they wouldn’t let it go.”

“Shit, Armin, did they hurt you?” Eren’s grip tightened around him as if he could feel for any wounds just by hugging him tighter.

“Not physically...they followed me off the bus, and tried to follow me here.” Eren went rigid. “I hid at Rivaille’s.” Eren stopped tracing his circles, and his fingers stopped carding through Armin’s hair.  
“I don’t want you going out alone anymore,” his voice was final, he pulled Armin closer.

“I have to,” Armin simply couldn’t live in a constant state of paranoia, and he couldn’t expect someone to be available every time he wanted to go out. He’d like to live.

“No you don’t, I can come with you, or--or  _ Jean,  _ maybe even Ymir! No one fucks with Ymir, or you could go with Historia because you two get along, and if you mess with Historia you’re also messing with Ymir--point is, please just don’t go alone...I’m scared for you.” Again, his fingers started to thread through his hair,  _ I’m scared too,  _ but he didn’t want to tell Eren that.  

“Maybe we can get a dog…” Eren has always loved dogs, Armin liked them, and he wouldn’t be alone when he had to be, nor would he feel burdened by another person’s presence.

“We’ll get the biggest, nicest, fiercest one we can find,” Eren promised, too caught in the moment to cheer because  _ they would finally get a dog! _

In the middle of the kitchen the two rocked together in each other’s arm, swaying to a rhythm that only they could hear.

“After that, I guess everything kind of came down on me,” Armin conceded.

“How so?”

“I just felt so unsafe again...like,” Armin pushed himself from Eren’s chest because he was about to start off again, and he can’t simply be held down. “I just don’t understand how people can just stand by and not do  _ anything!”  _ Frustrated, he pushed back his hair as he paced the kitchen. “Like they were following me off the bus, it was  _ obvious _ I was being harassed and in a possibly dangerous situation, but people just...looked the other way, nobody even  _ says  _ anything.  They don’t ask if I need help, they just pretend not to see.  It’s been like that all my life, Eren...why do people just...not...try?” His brow is furrowed together and his hands wave around in the air as if they could draw it out for him.  His eyes are staring at nothing, but they’re looking at everything inward and at the past.  For a second though, Armin comes back home to their apartment and sees Eren’s face.  He looks...sad?  Wait--no--he can’t think that--?

“I’m not talking about you and Mikasa...you guys are great, and I’m so lucky to have you two in my life, I’m so so  _ so  _ grateful for your guys’ friendship--I didn’t mean to insinuate--.”

“Armin…” Armin doesn’t seem to hear him though.

“I mean jeez--you’ve guys’ beaten up plenty of bullies for me--or Mikasa did, you tried...but, like, that’s not to say--,” the words were flying out of his mouth, blurring together.

“Armin!” Eren says more firmly, jolting Armin out of his rambling, he stared back at Eren with wide eyes,  _ shit, _ the last thing Armin wanted was to instigate another argument. “I think...I think I get it.” Armin was confused, Eren is usually not the one make sense of either of theirs ramblings. “You’re not saying Mikasa and I weren’t there at all, you’re just talking about the times you were alone.”  _ Yes!  _ Eren got it.

“That’s it--! Also discounting the times I was alone and able to help myself--but yeah...I was left vulnerable, and I started to remember every bad thing at once it seemed.  Even all the minor stuff...I was triggered and so I snapped,”  Armin idled in the center of their kitchen, shifting his weight in between his feet

“Triggered?”

“I mean...yeah...kind of, when you and Jean walked in with your ‘Save the Ta-Ta’s’ gear and stuff…”

“I love boobies?” Eren had a perplexed expression on his face, of all the triggers that could trigger a bad memory, this seemed like an odd one. The blonde’s chin bobbed up and down once, blush was brewing in his cheeks. “Why?”

“Uhm,” suddenly Armin became very embarrassed, it seemed like such a trivial thing to cause such a rise out of him.  Then again, it wasn’t like that was the one thing to set him off after today. Eren realized that maybe asking was rude, and he was ready to backtrack and suggest they both watch a movie or something--anything that could get Armin’s mind off of today’s events.

“I was ten. Remember that place we went to for your 9th birthday? Funland? I was there on my own one day, and there was this big inflatable slide. You know the one? It was red and yellow, and you and I liked to go to the top, hold hands, and cannonball down?” Eren nodded. “Well when I was there there was a group of middle-school boys a lot bigger than me wearing those ‘I love boobies’ bracelets.  They kept yelling that, at me and at the little girls passing by, and they’d shove their wrists in our faces...just hollering, I think I might have been hearing things, I kinda just blanked out and quickly got out of there, but they yelled after me that they were going to rape me--nothing happened--! I just--since then the phrase sticks and I start to feel...I feel  _ gross _ \--but I shouldn’t have blown up at you, I’m sorry.” His face felt warm, but before he knew it Eren was pulling him back into his chest and soothing his hair.

“You’re right, the phrasing  _ is  _ gross, and those boys were gross and just  _ awful. _ I wish I could have been there that time, and you have every right to be mad at these things.  I’m mad for you.” His words didn’t make it go away, nor did they stop Armin from feeling this, but Eren’s heartbeat was soothing, and his arms were firm as they kept tried their best to make him feel better.  Armin closed his eyes and rested his head against his boyfriend’s chest, appreciating the physical solidarity.

“Thank you,” Eren didn’t answer, instead he just squeezed Armin to him, who was appreciative of the validation Eren could provide.  “I should finish making your coffee,” Armin was about to pull away until his boyfriend caught him by the biceps.

“No, I’ll get it, you go sit down and I’ll be there with tea.  We still have leftover ice cream from the other night, wanna watch shitty SciFi?” A giggle bubbled up past what was left of his tears, he would love to.

 


End file.
